The Weekly Links 5

This is the 5th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.

Tools

• Style Cop – Version 4.4 of the code style checker (and it is now open source!) is available for download.
• Solution Converter – a much needed tool to convert between the various Visual Studio solution formats (2005, 2008, and 2010).
• PowerShell Community Extensions – V2.0 of this useful extensions library is released.

Information

• Build Tools Roundup For .NET Systems – Derick Bailey of the LostTechies.com blog site gives an overview of the various build automation tools available for .NET developers.  Just to note, PSake does it for me every time.
• JavaScript Coding Standards – Simon Ince announces the release of Microsoft’s first public coding standards for JavaScript.  The standards are aimed at developers using the Ajax Control Toolkit.
• The Power of Enum – Jason Sonmez looks at the use of the humble enumeration in .NET to produce elegant code.
• Easy creation of code generators in Visual Studio 2008 - Sebastian Negomireanu begins a series of posts that look at code generation in VS2008.  A welcome relief from the tsunami of posts on VS2010 following the recent launch.
• Use Extension method to write cleaner code – Fredrik Normen looks at using extension methods to write cleaner, more maintainable code.  In his article, he gives an excellent breakdown of the various steps in refactoring as well.  It ties in well with the number of links in last week’s roundup on extension methods.
• Make your XML strongly-typed – I’m including this link  as much for the excellent design of Doug Rathbone’s blog, Diary of a Ninja… , as for the article content!  It puts my blog to shame!
• Updated C# all-in-one file - Kirill Osenkov offers an updated file demonstrating the entire C# syntax.
• Starting and using Git successfully – Jimmy Boggart has posted an article on how to make the best use of the popular distributed version control system.
• All About Assemblies – A Code Project article on how to manage assemblies.
• Growl for Windows Target for NLog – A fantastic article  for developers on how to log output to a custom notifications using Growl and NLog.
• And finally, a spoof post on the history of Programming Languages.

SharePoint Information

• New advance SharePoint 2010 training material released – an overview of the training available from Microsoft on SharePoint 2010.   Much of the same material (i.e. virtually identical) can be downloaded here.
• Create your own SharePoint Server 2010 RTM Virtual Machine – Andrew Connell’s announces that a free guide to create a SharePoint 2010 VM is available form his company, Critical Path Training (Andrew, if you reading this, no promo link for the firm until the cheque arrives).

Events

• No new events, just a reminder about Barcamp Belfast – the postponed Barcamp is now rescheduled for 22nd May.

Careers

• Seagate (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Software Engineer with both Java and .NET experience, based in their Derry plant.
• Relay - .NET developers and Junior Developers required for their Belfast office.
• Gem – Technical Support Agents and Web Application Developer (via NIJobFinder.co.uk)  are required for the Belfast company.
• Fujitsu – A number of software developer roles are currently being advertised for my previous employer.  Roles are in both the Belfast and Derry offices.
• Randox Laboratories (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Software Engineer required for the Crumlin plant.
• Openwave – Software and Quality Engineers in the Belfast office.
• Parity – My current company is continuing to recruit for their Centre of Excellence in Belfast.

Calling PowerShell from Launchy

I have recently started using Launchy, a Windows keyword launcher. One problem I had with Launchy was configuring it to call my assorted PowerShell scripts.  An initial search of the web led me to this blog post, which in turn led me here.  So… call my PowerShell scripts from a batch file that I call from Launchy?  No, I don’t think so.
So, I searched again, and came across this screencast by PowerShell guru Hal Rottenberg, who showed how to configure Launchy to run your scripts. 

In Launchy, select the options, and in the Plugins tab, select the Runner (a custom command tool) options.  To create a new command, click on the ‘+’ button. Set the new command’s name  as “posh”, and then set the program by double clicking the field.  A folder browse button will appear.  Browse to the PowerShell directory (%windir%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0) and clicking on the program executable, powershell.exe.  You then need to type in the command arguments as follows:
"-nologo -noexit -noprofile -command $$"
To run your scripts from Launchy, hit the Launchy keyboard shortcut (ALT + SPACE by default), and type “posh”. Then hit the tab key, and type in the name of the script that you wish to run.  In this way, you can call your PowerShell scripts.

City of Culture 2013

 

Just a quick blog post to say I’m supporting Derry’s bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2013.  If you want to get involved, register your support at  http://www.cityofculture2013.com and check out this handy article.

Changes to RDP in WS2008

A quick post to point out that from Windows Server 2008 onwards, the useful /console switch has been deprecated, and the /admin switch is now used instead.  For details, check out this support article from Microsoft.

The Weekly Links 4

This is the 4th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.  As I was working in London last week, this is a bumper post incorporating two weeks worth of links. 

Tools

• TFS 2010 Power Tools – Buck Hodges of the VSTS team announces the release of the TFS 2010 Power Tools.
• FlairBuilder Desktop – My colleague Andy Poots blogs about this handy wireframing tool.
• Ook! .Net Compiler – another esoteric language to add to the ranks of BrainF*@k and LOLCODE.  I learned about the Ook! language by following the Irish Open Spaces Coding Day II on Twitter which unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend… But Andrea tells me it is likely to be repeated again in August/September.

Information

• Extension Methods Are Helper Methods That Taste Like Candy – John Sonmez looks at how to make use of C# extension methods.
• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend... – In a related article, James Michael Hare discusses when you should write an extension method.
• Breaking through the class sealing - Jason Crease gives the lowdown on using the sealed keyword in .NET.
• Back to the basics: constants vs read-only fields – A review of the differences between constants and read-only fields in the .NET framework.
• 6 important .NET concepts: - Stack, heap, Value types, reference types, boxing and Unboxing – A handy reference article on the Code Project site that describes these essential topics.
• Dynamically Read, Compile, and Run Source Code From a Text File – Does what it says on the tin… Interesting article, but I prefer using CSI, a simple C# interpreter written by David Anson, a Microsoft developer.
• 15+ hours of free Visual Studio 2010 – Free online training from Microsoft and AppDev.

SharePoint Related

• An Expected Error Has Occurred – Todd Carter describes how to create custom error pages in SharePoint 2010.
• SharePoint Visio Stencil and Template – Maxime Bombardier on her MSDN blog makes available a Visio template for the easy design of WSPs and features.
• Temporarily disabling List View Threshold on a large list – This article from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog discusses how to view large lists (> 5000 unfiltered items) in SharePoint 2010.
• How to: Build a SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Cmdlet – Corey Roth takes you through how to create your first PowerShell cmdlet for SharePoint.
• Service Application Framework Architecture – An overview of this framework in the SharePoint Foundation 2010 (the successor to WSS 3.0).

Events

• DevDays 2010 – Digital Circle and the All Island Software Network are organising a conference for all those developing mobile applications in Ireland, in Belfast (25th May) and Dublin (27th May).
• Azure Self-paced Interactive Learning Course – A free online course from Microsoft, starting on the 10th May.
• Idea Hacking #1 Storytelling – A very different event happening in Derry on 3rd June.
• Barcamp Belfast – the postponed Barcamp is now rescheduled for 22nd May.

Careers

• Barclay Communications – iPhone developer and web developer required for the Belfast office.
• CyberSource – A number of roles (QA and Software Engineers) at various levels are being advertised for this growing company, based in Belfast.
• 8over8 – This Derry based company is continuing to advertise for .Net developers.
• Latens – Software Engineers required for the Belfast office.
• ASG – Software and QA Engineers required for their Belfast office.
• Kainos – Graduate Developers required for the Belfast software company.
• Singularity – Various roles being advertised with the Derry based company.
• Learning Pool – The Derry based company are seeking PHP developers (intermediate and advanced) and technical support agents.

Mint Really Is Mint!

Just a quick blog post to sing the praises of Mint, a user-friendly Linux operating system.  I have been promising my brother that I would rebuild an old laptop for him for several months.  After finally completing the physical rebuild at the weekend, I faced a dilemma as to what OS to install.  The only Windows options open to me were Windows XP (9 years old), or Windows Server 2008 (fine as developer workstation, not great for a non-techie end user).  I did look at buying an upgrade to Windows 7, but I couldn’t justify the £80 price tag for this 7 year old laptop. 

So I thought I would try out a Linux OS for the first time.  After using this excellent online wizard to select a Linux OS, I plumped to install Ubuntu.  Unfortunately, Ubuntu wasn’t configured to deal with the wide screen on the laptop, and after booting, it would only display a blank screen.  I did search for a fix, but despite spending some time on the command line, I wasn’t able to update the display configuration. 

After this, I remembered reading that Mint was a variant of Ubuntu specifically designed for first time Linux users, and decide to give it to go.  After an insanely short time (approximately 15 minutes), Mint had smoothly installed itself, and was ready for use.  I am already very impressed with the options to install and automatically update applications using the software manager, and the overall performance of the OS.  Remember, this is a 7 year old laptop, with only 500MB RAM – I dread to think what the performance would have been like if I had installed Windows.  So, my brother has his laptop, and I am left a Linux convert!

The Weekly Links 3

This is the 3rd post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.

Tools

• SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM – Robert Bruckner blogs about the latest major release of the SQL Server platform.
• Tekpub MVC 2.0 Starter Site – Rob Connery releases a MVC V2 starter framework on CodePlex.
• Studio Styles – Stylish IDE schemes for the discerning Visual Studio user.
• Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 - Grigori Melnik announces about the latest release of the venerable Enterprise Library.
• Launchy – My personal tool of the week is Launchy, a replacement for the SlickRun, my previous program launcher.

Information

• What's new in T4 in Visual Studio 2010 – A comprehensive breakdown of the improvements in T4 (the Text Template Transformation Toolkit), Microsoft’s code generation tool.  Check out Scott Hanselman’s post on T4 for an introduction to it.
• Cyclomatic Complexity – What Is It and Why Should You Care? – a breakdown of what Cyclomatic Complexity is, and why you should care about it from the Java Metrics site.
• C# TDD Videos – Brett Schuchert releases a series of videos showing how the Shunting Yard Algorithm was implemented in C'# using TDD.
• SharePoint 2010 reaches RTM! – Old news now, but SharePoint 2010 was released last Friday…
• Learn Windows Phone 7 Development in 7 Minutes Each – A series of videos introducing developers to the Windows Phone 7 platform.
• Eliminating Comments: the Road to Clarity – John Sonmez describes how eliminating comments improves your code’s readability.
• Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts Poster – Download a handy PDF of the VS2010 keyboard shortcuts.
• SharePoint 2010 Developer Videos – A series of Channel 9 videos demonstrating the new features available for developers using Visual Studio 2010 to develop solutions for SharePoint 2010.
• Top 25 security issues for developers of web sites – exactly what it says it is…
• What is SharePoint Out of the Box? – Bill Simser blogs about what SharePoint OOTB means to him, following a recent series of blog posts on the topic.

Events

• SQL Immersion: Dublin 2010 – Advanced SQL training with Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp in Dublin this June/July.  Via Bob Duffy’s blog.
• Epicenter 2010 - The 2nd Annual Irish Software Show, epicenter 2010, takes place in Trinity College Dublin between Tuesday 8th and Friday 11th June.

Careers

• Aurion Learning – ASP.NET developer required for the educational software ISV based in Belfast.  More details via NIJobFinder.
• Asidua – Software Developers and Graduate Developers, based in Belfast.
• First Derivatives – A number of developer roles are currently being advertised by the Newry based financial software firm.
• Navinet – Various developer roles based in the new Belfast centre of excellence for the American healthcare firm.
• Isaac Agnew – A senior Software Developer required in Belfast.
• CitiGroup (via NIJobFinder) – Several development roles, based in Belfast.
• QUB – Software Engineer (Grid Computing), based in Belfast.
• Moy Park (via NIJobFinder) – Information Assistant, based in Craigavon.
• Parity – A number of roles available with my own company, based in Belfast.